Dwayne Johnson in front of camera, and behind it

When The Rock tells you to listen to something, you listen. On pain of dangerously cocked eyebrow, you listen. In the case of his new CNN show, Soundtracks: Songs That Defined History, The Rock wants you to check out music that’s tied to pivotal moments in the past.

Soundtracks debuts Thursday with an episode centred on the death of Martin Luther King Jr. and the civil rights-themed music that came afterward. Among the highlights: James Brown’s 1968 anthem Say it Loud (I’m Black and I’m Proud) and Kendrick Lamar’s 2015 protest song Alright.

The subsequent seven episodes focus on 9-11, the Vietnam War, Hurricane Katrina, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the moon landing, the Stonewall riots and the tennis match between Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs, which galvanized the women’s movement.

The Rock (a.k.a. Dwayne Johnson), who’s an executive producer for Soundtracks, talked about the music intertwined with the phases of his own life in a clip promoting the show.

“When I was younger and starving and struggling and literally we were getting evicted out of our apartment, the music that moved me at that time wasn’t sentimental music. It was more aggressive, more aggressive hip-hop. It was ‘I’m broke and I want to get better. I’m broke and I want to make money,’ ” he says.

“Then as I got a little older and I became a professional wrestler, and the world of wrestling — much like these musicians — our life is on the road and we live on the road. There wasn’t a big tour bus for me. I drove myself everywhere. The soundtrack for my life for years became really traditional country music.”

The show also features archival footage and interviews with people including Billy Joel, Smokey Robinson, Pat Benatar, Paul Simon, George Clinton, Neil deGrasse Tyson and Reverend Al Sharpton.

Soundtracks follows the success of last year’s music-based documentary series — among them PBS’s Soundbreaking: Stories From the Cutting Edge of Recorded Music and HBO Canada’s Hip-Hop Evolution, which recently won a Peabody Award.

Puff piece

F*ck, That’s Delicious, the Viceland show spotlighting rapper and chef Action Bronson, airs a special episode on 4/20, the widely acknowledged international day devoted to cannabis. In the series, Action Bronson and his buds Meyhem Lauren, The Alchemist and Big Body Bes travel the globe performing at concerts and enjoying all manner of food, wine and herbs. The episode titled Heady New York Special features the crew taking local stoners and tourists on an excavation of the city’s munchies.

In a giggle-filled extra scene posted on YouTube, they visit Tokyo Teriyaki in Queens — across the street from where Action Bronson went to junior high — for a chicken katsu sandwich and teriyaki. It’s a combo Bronson calls “stoner bliss”.